Grown Ups

by Emma Jane Unsworth

  “It was a slow bit!”

  “It was sex, Jenny. Not a film.”

  I looked at him and tried a cute: “Sometimes it’s as good as the movies, though.”

  “Mmmmmmmm.”

  It was a long sound, that mmmm. Like a door buzzer, or a hornet trapped in a jar. I watched the sunlight on the wall flicker. Summer was almost over. First thing in the morning and last thing at night. There was a time—even in my life—when that slot would have been reserved for a lover.

  Art said: “Are you in love with someone on the Internet?”

  “No!” I said. Which was almost not a lie.

  He said: “I’ve noticed a direct correlation between you growing more distant from me and closer to your phone.”

  He said: “It’s like I can’t get to you when you’re there. Your eyes are all wide and you’re plugged in like a happy little robot.”

  He said: “Except you’re not happy.”

  “How do you know I’m not happy?”

  “Because you’re never satisfied.”

  I took his penis in my hand. “Maybe that’s just me.”

  I WALK

  back into the main office. It’s all creative types in here—advertising and media, mostly. There’s a lot of lino. A lot of dachshunds. Lots of plants that are real-imitating-plastic. You see men with visible pocket watches high-fiving over MacBook Airs and you worry about what this means for evolution.

  I work for an online magazine, the Foof, and it is as awful as it sounds. My editor, Mia, is fucking terrifying—stupidly; admirably?—socially fearless. I think this is her seventh or eighth start-up. Art called her a “delectable oaf” (not to her face). I’m anxious to please her because I’m an approval junkie and have a teacher–pupil dynamic with people in positions of authority. You should see me getting a Pap smear—it’s like I’m trying to sell them my super-clean vagina. I thought I’d offended Mia on Friday when I told her UV uplighters for teeth were imbecilic, unaware that she was wearing one (I thought she was slurring on her antidepressants)—but then she liked one of my pictures on Sunday and I breathed a sigh of relief because I knew everything was okay. Saturday was fraught—I spent a lot of it questioning my whole life and worth. Even though I don’t respect Mia, I fear her, and professionally that’s ultimately a good thing because it means I want to impress her, so I give my work my all. I’m only really effective around people I want to impress. Otherwise, my energy deadens. I’d churn out dross if I actually felt comfortable around my boss. Vague social terror: that’s my motivation.

  The Foof  has a permanent office here, in the loosest sense. There’s a sign—FOOF TOWERS—in fluffy pink letters across the back wall. The sign could be taken down at any given moment. So could the wall.

  I make my way across the main space to my desk. I don’t come in every day so I share with Gemma, who writes the horoscopes and product reviews and is so cheerful I want to punch her. (Sorry, I don’t want you thinking that just because I work in the media I’m a fucking idiot.)

  I sit down and start to compose an e-mail, which is what I do after any unsatisfactory social interaction.

  DRAFTS

  Subject: That Croissant

  Dear Breakfast Maven, Queen of the Granola,

  You know and I know that croissant was prehistoric. It was yesterday’s batch, that’s why you were trying to palm it off on me. I deserve a fresh croissant, do I not, for my £3.50? In America, that kind of hesitation within the service industry would be unthinkable. JUST GIVE ME THE CROISSANT I WANT NEXT TIME, FOR THE LOVE OF COMMON DECENCY.

  Kind regards,

  Jenny McLaine

  The Foof (columnist)

  THEY SAY

  it is crucial to incorporate mindfulness into your daily routine. I like to get on it every few hours, just to be sure. After I’ve written the e-mail, I take a deep breath and count to ten in Hindi. I even have an app to remind me to take time out regularly. It shouts TAKE A BREAK, BABY! in an Austin Powers voice (I chose the voice from six options). It’s a little obnoxious, but it’s good to know something cares.

  I check le status of mon croissant. Thirty-five likes. Dear sweet Christ alive. You’ve got to be kidding. The thirties are disastrous numbers, they really are.

  As I’m studying the post, I realize that I have automatically tagged WerkHaus and, while I am displeased with the morning’s events, I do not want anyone losing their job on my account. I’ve seen An Inspector Calls—several times—with my mother. I know how much people in the service industry can take things to heart. My life is a perfect war zone of potential consequences.

  I go into Edit Post and detag the location. Too late! Someone from WerkHaus—Joel from the Little Green Bento Den—has commented:

  Was it the hench one with the underbite? She’s a right Orc

  Fucking Joel. I consider what to do. I don’t want Suzy Brambles or any other notables thinking I am endorsing this bile. I also don’t want to get into an argument with Joel that could last several hours and get my blood up. I’ve sacrificed entire emotional half-days before now to online altercations. And I’ve got a column to write. Digital is not at odds with the flesh, as some might argue; this all has a very physical effect on me.

  I type back at Joel:

  Putting the miso in misogynist as ever, I see

  There. That, I think, is smart and final. No coming back from that. Now we can all relax.

  I stare at my comment.

  Oh God. No, it’s not smart at all. It’s overhandled and ham-fisted, like all my comments. Do you even get miso in a bento box? Fuck my life.

  I delete the comment and Joel’s comment and just as I’m regretting deleting Joel’s comment (it looks cowardly, to delete without comment, and he’s the kind of fucker who’ll notice and comment again)—I put my head in my hands.

  “MORNING, WOKERS!”

  I look up. Mia is standing over me. She’s wearing a blindingly white dress with a giant turtleneck obscuring the bottom half of her face. She looks like a Victorian who just got back from space. Mia’s Boston terrier, Simone, is by her feet. Simone once shat my initials perfectly on the office floor. You can call me paranoid, but there was no denying it was a definite J and an M. Another victory for meaning. My point is: you know someone judges you when their dog judges you. No language skills, but what a critic! Etc.

  “How’s my fave ginger whinger?” says Mia, in a voice that cuts right through my face and straight into my being. She is holding a turmeric-colored drink and a twisted copy of Vogue.

  “I really hate it when you call me that.”

  “Don’t be a hater, bébé. Buzz on the chans is there’s a new personal drone that doubles as a clutch bag. When you’re out you just fling it in the air and it captures your night from above from all angles.”

  I really think I could shoot Mia, possibly in the face, if her opinion of me weren’t so important to me.

  “I don’t need an aerial reminder of how appalling my night was,” says Vivienne, the features editor. Vivienne is six foot and wiry, with thick veins ribbing her arm muscles. She looks like the kind of woman who’s spent a lot of time smoking on Spanish beaches. I am certain she has killed. I don’t think I’ve once seen her smile and she isn’t on any social media—which only adds to her menace, and her valor. Vivienne and Mia are friends from fashion college. Anyone can see Mia’s always been the one with money and ambition and Vivienne is the cerebral sponger. Vivienne doesn’t give zero fucks; she gives minus fucks. Every time I am near her I want to whisper: Teach me how to eat an artichoke, Vivienne.

  “Are you completely mad, Viv?” says Mia. “That’s the teenage-girl angle. Pictures from above make everyone look like a teenage girl. If you partook in popular culture, I wouldn’t have to tell you this.”

  “I do not partake,” says Vivienne. “I am a puppet master.”

  “Well, I’ve ordered a sample clutch drone,” says Mia, “which I shall be trying out, in the name of investigative journalis
m.”

  Vivienne says: “Speaking of which, I’m going to patronize that new Israeli near King’s Cross at lunch. I may not be back for a few days.”

  “Jenny!” says Mia, as though she has just remembered my name. “How was your weekend?”

  “Busy! A few drinks, a private viewing, you know.”

  “Yes, I saw your picture.”

  “Oh, did you? Great, thanks,” I gush.

  “Are you not going to ask me what I got up to?”

  “What did you get up to?”

  She scrutinizes my face. “I went … for a meal … which I know you know, because you liked other pictures around the same time mine went up, so why didn’t you like mine?”

  Vivienne adjusts her neck. She knows the score. She keeps the score.

  “I must have … missed it? You know how sometimes it randomly reorders things.”

  “Hmm.”

  The truth is, I like every fifth or sixth thing Mia posts—not always because I like them, but to sort of say hi and remind her of my existence. I don’t want to look rabid. I thought I was managing my affection well. Evidently not.

  “And how is Art?” Mia asks.

  “He’s fine! Busy.”

  She clasps her hands. This again.

  Suffice to say that Art has a lot of hangers-on. A lot of women of a certain age. I know that’s unfeminist to say, but it’s a phenomenon that brings out the worst in me. At exhibitions, launches, shows … He’s the sexy, shaven-headed photographer. The hot thug. I can see it in their eyes: he’s a welcome, regular escape from their non-pussy-licking husbands.

  “Can he make it for drinks on Friday?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Not even one?”

  “One drink?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll ask.”

  “Do that.”

  “I will.”

  “Appreciated. So,” Mia continues. “What’s the column this week?”

  “Cohabitation with women versus cohabitation with men. A nostalgia piece in part, about my uni days.”

  “Juicy anecdotes, searing insight, rounded off with everywoman wisdom?”

  “Check, check, check!”

  She hesitates. “Just, keep it on the hi-fi, rather than the low-fi.”

  “Spice it up,” says Vivienne. “S’boring. You’re like someone in a Sunday supplement moaning about their shoes.”

  Mia says: “Now, now. But yes, Jenny, it’s true. We’re all bored stiff with your vulnerability. Save it for your therapist. We need bold voices, not weak cries for help. We want ferocity. Strength. A roar from the lady jungle, not a whimper. This is the front line of feminism. We have work to do. Remember the name of your column: Intense Modern Woman.”

  “I mean, it’s an oxymoron though, isn’t it, having a column in a feminist magazine.”

  Mia stares at me. “Do you mean a column as in an erection? Are we still doing phallus chat? COME ON. Brand too strong for some punk-ass bear to stop this wave. Make it gain traction.”

  I swallow. “I understand, Mia.”

  I do not.

  She starts to walk away and turns back to say: “The headline of this conversation is: Don’t hold back. Explode everything about what living with other women is really like. Put a grenade up the arse of that female utopia.”

  “Got it.”

  Simone follows Mia, giving me a hefty side-eye.

  Vivienne walks to the kitchenette zone and starts wrenching at the coffee machine. “Why are you chewing your fingers?” she asks me. “Anxiety?”

  “No, it’s because I think I’m fucking delicious.”

  I check my likes once more (forty-two, I should really kill myself) and start to write.

  I stop typing every two minutes or so and let my thumb and thoughts zip round in a fast, looping flight. This, this, this, this. Back to work for a few sentences. Back round again. This, this, this. My head teems.

  This is how I think:

  I am doing what I should be doing: writing. Oh, that’s quite good. I can do a good sentence when I put my mind to it—no, wait, it’s terrible, why am I so terrible? Am I so terrible because of that time I kissed my male friend even though I was in a relationship because I have no way of separating platonic heterosexual friendship from groundwork for a sexual encounter? Oh, there’s something about politics! I should know more about politics. I will like it so that people think I know about politics. Or am I so terrible because I once tweeted a line of my own poetry after I’d been up all night and someone replied: Pull your head out of your ass once in a while, and it was the brother of someone I once dated. No, I am terrible because someone once commented on a column—apropos of nothing—YOU HAVE NO INTEGRITY. I am obsessed with whoever wrote that. How dare they be so right about me. It was the top comment too, so it lives forever as the first thing you see beneath the piece—I can’t believe it can’t be removed on legal grounds. Ugh, this woman with the daily life tips is awful. Her podcast is number two in the charts. I should do a podcast. But what would my podcast be about? Maybe politics. Maybe politics for people who know nothing about politics. Like me. I am A WOMAN OF THE PEOPLE. I just need to find the time. I don’t know how people find the time to do podcasts. I can’t even find the time to finish this senten—

  My phone pings with a message. I pounce on it.

  It’s one of my lodgers. Sid.

  Hey have you seen the half avocado that was in the fridge? x

  She sends me daily micro-aggressions like this.

  I reply:

  Yes I ate it for breakfast, thought it would be okay as you ate half my sourdough last week x

  That wasn’t me, that was Jonah, as you know I am gluten-free x

  He was staying in your room for the night tho x

  He is his own person, why am I accountable for his actions? x

  Fine, I’ll buy you another avocado. A whole one x

  Not much good to me right now is it? Not to worry! Thank you, I do appreciate you replacing it x

  I keep telling myself this lodger situation is only for a while, but I don’t know how I’ll ever afford to live in that house on my own. I probably just need to work harder, somehow. I should be multi-hyphen. Journalist-podcaster-politician. How hard can it be to be a politician anyway? They’re all floundering and resigning these days. I can flounder and resign! Especially for cash. I’ll give it some thought when I get some time. I have three lodgers at the moment: Sid, Frances, and Moon. They’re all in their early twenties, which makes me feel great. Usually when I get in they’re colonizing the lounge. The other day when I got in they’d been at an all-day festival at Victoria Park. Swathed across the sofa, bleached and feathered, they looked like a gang of crooked fairies. The evil fairies that kill babies. Those kind of fairies.

  Mia comes over. She has a printout of my column in her hand.

  “Well, it’s not going to start the revolution,” she says. “But it might light a few torches in some undereducated backwaters. Now, do you have any candid photos of these days?”

  “I’m sure I can root something out,” I say.

  “Excellent. Keep it halal.”

  I look at my nearest desk-neighbor, confused. My desk-neighbor whispers: “She’s trying to make it a thing. Like kosher.”

  I nod at Mia. She gives me an empty fist bump and walks away.

  I pull out my laptop and start to go through my scanned old photos, but I end up looking at photos of me and Art. I stall over a photo of my mother and Art in a bar. They have their arms around each other. I recall how my mother burst in that night—in stilettos—and shouted (she always shouts, to be fair—no, no: she projects): “Get me a seat, would you? MY BALLS ARE KILLING ME.” Everyone in the bar looked—which was what she wanted, of course. Art thought she was the most. Showboats, both of  ’em.

  “Your wit’s hers,” Art said, more than once.

  However, one likes to think the apple fell a little farther from the wit tree and rolled a good w
ay across the field of wit, coming to rest at the foot of Wit Mountain.

  Anyway—she was so nice to him that night. Too nice. She’d never been nice to anyone I’d introduced her to before. But she was all over Art from the get-go. When he went to the Gents, I said: “You seem … very eager to please him. Not like you.”

  After all, she’d said it countless times: Darling, who needs a man when you have a detached house, a personal trainer, and a Teasmade?

  “What do you mean, it’s not like me?” She did innocent eyes.

  I did cynical ones. “You’ve always been rude to my boyfriends.”

  “I like his energy. It complements yours. And mine.”

  I sat back. “Are you making a play for him? Because if you are, this situation is veering horribly close to cliché.”

  “Pahaha! Making a play—what a notion.”

  “Because you actually described yourself earlier as a ‘gymslip mum.’ You actually used those words.”

  “It’s as simple as this: I think he’s good for you.”

  “I’m good as I am. I don’t need anyone to make me better.”

  “I know that. But I also know …”

  “What?”

  “How it gets, sometimes.”

  In my head I thought she might mean “lonely,” but I didn’t want to push it, and anyway Art was coming back. And how could she be lonely, this woman who professed to be constantly harangued and harassed by the voices of spirits, which invaded her thoughts like rampant toddlers, or so she said. I’d once asked her: “How do you switch off?” She’d winked and raised her gin glass to me.

  She put her hand on my arm. “But you must comb through his teenage years with him. Don’t let him be evasive. Don’t let his own … toxic experiences stop him … experiencing things with you.”

  “Thanks, but I don’t need relationship advice from someone who hasn’t had a relationship since the nineties.”

  “Well, what do you call this?”

  “What?” I said, confused.

  She batted her hand back and forth between us.